SDCL’s specialist energy efficiency fund, SEEIT, has raised another £100m following a placing of new shares.
Those that bought the shares, priced at 103 pence, and that still hold them in November will qualify for an expected 2.5p dividend.
Chairman Tony Roper said the fund was “delighted” with the level of market appetite, adding that it expects to secure identified projects in North America, Europe and Asia in the coming months.
Since launch, SEEIT has struck deals with Tesco to deploy megawatts of solar PV across the retailer’s sites, acquired a 125MW portfolio of co-generation assets in Spain and invested in energy efficiency loans and CHP assets in the US.
SDCL co-founder and CEO, Jonathan Maxwell, recently told The Energyst that the Tesco deal, structured via a power purchase agreement (PPA) was “a very good indicator of the attractiveness of rooftop solar PV in today’s [unsubsidised] market”.
Maxwell expects to see other technologies being delivered by instruments such as energy services agreements, with “more deals in storage, which has a huge role to play behind the meter, going forward over the next six to 18 months”.
Maxwell believes PPAs could also enable a delivery framework for technologies such as heat pumps. “There are interesting technologies that could emerge for PPAs,” he suggested.
Meanwhile, SEEIT hopes to see “a lot more activity in the healthcare sector,” said Maxwell, “because they are enormous users of energy and there are tremendous efficiencies that could be introduced into that system” via PPAs and energy services agreements.
“Hospitals are very heavy energy users, but their patterns are predictable, so they present a very attractive counterparty,” said Maxwell.
However, unlocking that opportunity requires market participants to establish “the right frameworks to deliver these [improvements] at scale”.
Related stories:
SEEIT strikes solar PV deal with Tesco
SEEIT: Onsite generation ‘will continue to boom’
Specialist energy fund commits £87m to buy projects, eyes more
Energy fund raises £100m via IPO
Click here to see if you qualify for a free subscription to the print magazine, or to renew.
Follow us at @EnergystMedia. For regular bulletins, sign up for the free newsletter.
